Accuweather has Chris skirting the northern Cuban Coast and in the central Gulf on Tuesday, heading west northwest towards the south Texas coast late in the week. that would be a good scenario if it follows that path and hits between Corpus and Brownsville.

temps in the center and at flight levels have cooled.... pressure is 1003mb and winds still 60mph 2nm wide center... may be a little rusty on decode... they were at 1500ft when the dropped the GPS dropsonde

Once again, the NHC is bad at predicting intensity. I hope it stays away from here because I'm moving from my apartment into my new house next week. That is the last thing I need to deal with right now!

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Let's try and nip this in the bud.It will jog a little to the west and it will jog a little to the north.They all wooble.This only becomes important when it is very close to the U.S. mainland or when it becomes a trend.

As I can attest to with Charley -- we went to bed that Thurs. night with it hitting Tampa, and woke up with it "bobbling" and by mid-morning it was clear it was going to hit us.

Wilma drove me nuts last year -- every couple of hours after my dh got off the statewide conference call (he was in the Sarasota County EOC), he'd call me and say, "Well, it's north." Or, "Well, it's south." I finally got to the point on Sunday morning where I was so exhausted from making the stay/go decision I said heck with it, I'm staying. But every few hours as it got closer to land, the track kept changing until about 12 hours out when it was finally staying far enough south that I knew we'd only get minimal TS force winds.

The bottom line is, use the LBL as a reference ONLY. If you fall within the "cone of anxiety," make sure your plans are complete, your hurricane kit is ready, and stay watchful.

--------------------Lesli in SWFL.
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.

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Let's just say Chris might possibly get into the Gulf. What day are we looking at down the road for a possible landfall? I know there are a lot
of ifs with this storm but just in case, are we looking at Tuesday or Wednesday or earlier?

All you can do is make sure you're ready and stay tuned.

Wilma slowed down to a crawl and even when they said she'd make landfall they had to keep bumping it back repeatedly.

Instead of worrying exactly about when, just make sure all your preparations are in place and ready to go, so if it does come your way, you know what and when you have to do.

After Wilma last year, personally, I am SO over the "when" question. I just want to know where and approximately what category. I can realistically be ready to be out of my house within 24 hours. So if I know there's a storm that's within 72 hours of landfall and I'm in the "cone of anxiety" then I'm going to take all the steps I need to get me to the "six hour" mark, which means everything short of actually packing up the pictures and papers and critters and leaving. Do everything I need to do so that I'm only six hours or less away from leaving.

And when I get to that point, I usually leave everything in place and ready for a while in case the situation changes, even if it looks like I won't have to leave.

In fact, I'll most likely spend the weekend dragging out the boards and making sure they haven't warped or need to cut new ones. And a few I will put up and they'll stay in place for several weeks at least.

We know that we are now approaching the more active part of the season. We are seeing the increase in activity and more favorable conditions. We know what's most likely ahead for us from now until late October. That's three months we need to stay on our toes.

Now then, having said all that, it's WAY too soon to predict any kind of landfall timeframe. Chris has to 1) make it past the two low pressure systems, 2) make it over Cuba and other islands unscathed, 3) make it into the GOM and strengthen. When a storm is this far out and has this many variables to contend with, all you can do, as frustrating as it seems, is follow the cone and work from that.

--------------------Lesli in SWFL.
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.

chris is still too far out for anyone to say with any certainty where it will be going. people who lie in the cone or just outside of the cone should be cognizant of this strengthening storm. even the mets on tv should just play the watch and wait game and just inform. it is way too premature for anyone in the media to be suggesting today where this storm will go. that has always been a beef of mine. people on tv say what is happening today and put it in the future. yesterday the local mets on tv were saying this should stay a weak tropical storm and may even die out before ever affecting Florida. one day later we have just the opposite happening. the forecast cone could shift a few hundred miles in the coming days who knows? anyone on the southeast coast and the gulf should watch the storm carefully over the next several days, but we may not even know on Friday where this storm may or may not impact on Florida. as far as the potential track goes and the shift south a bit, is the thinking that the ridge is going to build in that strong and keep it on an almost due west track down the line? i still don't buy that track and i think the wnw motion is going to be the norm for this storm.

With Rita I made reservations earlier than most people and I was glad I did. So, that is why I am wondering about a time frame.
Reservations can always be canceled. Last year all of the Houston people took up our hotels on our evacuation route and the shelters
also (we also had Katrina victims taking up space in our shelters and hotels) so some people didn't have places to go. I always
book reservations with a large "window". Just wondering if Chris got into the Gulf and if it headed this way about when that would be.

I've been playing catch-up on the posts today. Seems as if several are surpirsed by our tropical storm's ability to defy forecasts. I think two things are worth reiterating -

Regarding the initial intensity "errors" -

1) Chris is a *small* TC - small TCs are subject to dramatic swings in intensity, up or down.
2) The original NHC intensity forecast was based on very little data, and lousy model initialization

Regarding future intensity forecasts -

1) Chris is a *small * TC (read above) Additionally, because he is so small, he is very susceptible to being weakened substantially, *should* he traverse some of the higher islands and/or spend too much time over a larger island, such as Cuba
2) Models are inconsistent. However, they are now pulling further to the south (left) of previous guidance - likely placing Chris at the mercy of some islands (see above). However, *should* Chris either survive such a challenge and/or enter the GOM, there is one healthy Loop Current Eddy in the central GOM -

1) On storm strength as it relates to storms possibly moving further north --
As a tropical cyclone grows stronger, it is steered (to first order) by a deeper layer of winds in the atmosphere. A lot of times, features will be found at the upper levels -- say 200mb -- but not penetrate much lower than that as they are not all that strong. As a result, a weaker storm won't feel these little "tugs" as I'll call them, but a stronger storm might. Also, again to first order, a stronger storm generally has a broader expanse of cyclonic turning (e.g. it is larger than if it were weaker), leading to greater impacts from Coriolis and an enhanced tendency for the storm to turn ever-so-slightly more toward the north. This is part of the Beta effect HF referenced in the post I'm replying to.

2) Timeliness of recon data into the models -- usually as soon as possible, generally with the next model run after the recon flight concludes. The dropsondes should end up in the 00Z models, but what impact they will have is still to be determined. We won't see a G-IV surveillance mission until at least tomorrow, meaning it'll be tomorrow night's late night model runs that see the first true environmental sampling.

3) Why models don't see small storms too well -- global models have a grid spacing of generally 33km or worse, with most at 54-110km. A small storm is only going to be captured by a few of those grid points (out of many surrounding it that don't have the storm) and oftentimes the actual center will not fall near one of the grid points. The model thus doesn't see much of anything there and, coupled with a tad bit of "buddy checks" to ensure that the data are valid, you get a poor representation in the model. The stronger and/or larger a storm gets, the better its model representation gets.

Over the course of the afternoon, Chris decided it wanted to develop a CDO-type of feature, complete with banding patterns typically associated with moderate to strong tropical storms. Lo and behold, that's what we have right now. As noted in my earlier blog post, intensification in fits and spurts for the next couple of days is likely -- we'll likely see a bit of leveling off into the early morning hours before the next "leap" (if you will) of organization takes place -- before we see steadier intensification. This, of course, assumes that the storm stays off of Hispaniola. The only way it doesn't do that is if the ridge builds in much stronger than forecast, which is possible but I don't believe very likely.

Even if there is a trough fracture-induced upper low that forms in a few days behind Chris, it's not going to affect the forecast thinking from earlier...and may even provide another outflow channel to worry about. I'm already starting to get worried about the organization of the storm leading to better outflow to the north and west in the short-term; let's see what happens there first before getting to the long term.

I really don't see anything other than the standard organizational hurdles to keep this one back for now. The ULL near the Bahamas, as HF alluded to, is already starting to retrogress; the trough it is connected to that extends on an east-west line some distance north of Chris should lift out in the next day or so. Rather than repeat what he mentioned, I'll refer you to HF's post (the one I'm replying to) for thoughts on intensity. A major hurricane is possible from this one in the next 5 days while a storm of at least minimal hurricane intensity is likely in the next day or two. How strong the ridge builds in will determine the track forecast over the next 4-5 days and what parts of the extreme SW Atlantic need to worry; the intensity of the storm plus the timing and location of any waves in the flow aloft will determine what happens if and when Chris gets into the Gulf. Overall, the NHC cone width looks good, I'd just shift it all about 100 miles to the north at 5 days. This means everyone in the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, and Florida needs to watch this one for the weekend...points later, TBD.

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